In a BRILLIANT move by the US department of agriculture, an effective tool for testing for mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy -- BSE) is going to be scaled back, because... well, because the "testing program has been not intended as a measure to prevent mad cow disease. Rather, it is designed to survey the prevalence of mad cow disease."

Yeah. It doesn't make any sense to me either. Nor does it make any sense that the USDA is telling states and farms that they can't conduct independent testing.

From the article:

Last July, the state of Montana said it would test Canadian cattle entering the state in an effort to protect against mad cow disease and protect the business integrity of the Montana cattle industry. The USDA opposed Montana's test, saying that Montana does not have the authority to conduct such a testing or to collect a fee for the test, Reuters reported last year.

Creekstone Farms in Kansas tests each and every head of cattle intended for Asian markets. But the USDA is blocking the beef producer, saying that only the government is authorized to conduct mad cow tests, Los Angels Times reported today.

The USDA is effectively putting a gag-order cattle ranchers. Why? Perhaps to prevent our exports from being blocked. If independent cattle ranchers are publicly reporting cases of BSE to protect consumers, people (including other countries) will likely stop buying the beef, which will hurt the US economy.

How absolutely irresponsible. Let's just keep pushing our dirt under the rug, hoping that nobody will find out about it until we're long gone. That'll make things better. Jeez...